Week Two: ‘Grey Gardens’ (and ’50 Shades of Grey’)

This week in movies I learned some hard lessons. I learned, for one, that it’s hard to pull a 300-ton steamship up a muddy hill in the jungle. I learned that it was hard to sell bibles in the 60s in Boston, in Florida, and practically everywhere else. I also learned that it’s hard—even very hard— to watch eight movies in one week.

On week two of my quest to blog through 71 films in the Criterion Collection, I spent nearly eleven hours watching the films in the “Documentaries” category of Hulu’s themed Criterion page. The films covered disparate topics, ranging from one on Jackie Onassis’s eccentric cousins living out their lives in a crumbling East Hampton mansion all the way to a nearly wordless tribute to feats of Spanish architecture in “Antonio Gaudi” (1985). In between, I listened to Orson Welles sound off on the nature of trickery in “F for Fake” (1973), watched a traveling bible salesman throw in the towel in “Salesman” (1969), and absorbed some heady meditations on Japanese culture, and life in general, in “Sans Soleil” (1983).

Physically, it’s rather difficult to sit for hours at time before a screen, no matter how engaging the film. I found myself turning to small tasks as the movies played. I cleaned my room to lovely shots of the Sagrada Familia in “Antonio Gaudi.” I painted my nails. I considered doing crunches, but then thought better of it.

Eventually, I settled in for more attentive viewing, starting with “Grey Gardens,” a 1975 film made by the Maysles brothers, the same team responsible for “Salesman.” The filmmakers visit the East Hampton home of Jackie O.’s cousins, high-society dropouts Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie Beale. They live among their cats and their old records, eating ice-cream out of the carton and nagging each other, but they have a good time. Edie wears a head-scarf constantly and dances by herself downstairs, while her mother sings along from her upstairs bed. They leave food out for the raccoon that lives in the attic and they let the cats have their run of the place, while it falls farther and farther beyond repair.

“It’s hard to keep the line between the past and the present,” says the younger Edie Beale. And, indeed, the pair slip in and out of their memories as they share them with the cameramen, who make an appearance once or twice in the film.

In one scene the elder Beale, nearing 80, sits in bed in a sunhat and sings along to a recording of herself at around age 40. An enormous portrait, painted at the height of her beauty, stands up against the wall opposite and seems to stare down at her with a bemused look. When a cat does its business behind the portrait, she remarks without concern, “I’m glad somebody’s doing something they want to do.”

Like last week, I started with plenty of time but quickly found myself strapped as the end of the week approached. I lost a whole day to “50 Shades of Grey,” (a separate high-brow pursuit) and another to the Fourth of July. Coming back from the beach on the Fourth in a panic, I heard the fireworks popping on the water not far from where I live. “There’s no time!” I thought and coerced my poor boyfriend into a movie marathon instead.

German filmmaker Werner Herzog, the subject of Les Blank’s 1982 documentary “Burden of Dreams,” might understand the need to complete a personal, if totally unnecessary, goal. The film documents the making of Herzog’s 1982 film “Fitzcarraldo,” about a man who wants to build an opera house in the middle of the jungle.

As part of this venture, the main character needs to haul three-story riverboat over a min-mountain in the jungle into another river. Herzog, apparently not one for modifications, decides to actually do this—to pull a 300-ton steamboat up a 40-degree incline, employing a complicated system of pulleys, two different engineering teams, and several dozen native villagers.

Thigh-deep in muck, smoking a cigarette, and directing in three different languages, Herzog is unrelenting in his commitment to his vision. When his first engineer tells him it can’t be done, Herzog tells him it must be done, or else, he says, “I’ll lose the central metaphor of my film.”

“If I abandon this project, I would be a man without dreams, and I don’t want to live like that,” he says into the camera, “I live my life or I end my life with this project.”

I won’t pretend to be as extreme as that, if Herzog can keep his cool (sort of) and get the job done, then perhaps I can too. Check back next week to see if I keep my sanity through the ten films in the “First Films” category.

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.